Postal orders receive online lifeline

The first ever postal order to be issued was auctioned for almost £4,500 yesterday. And its modern-day successors are experiencing something of a revival...

• After falling popularity, sales of postal orders are rising again. Post offices sold £334million of orders last year, with a third spent on online shopping - notably eBay.

• The orders were created partly to help the poor buy goods through the mail without a bank account • During the First and Second World Wars, they were used as a substitute for cash to save on paper and labour.

• When Winston Churchill turned 80 in 1954, a schoolboy from Hereford used his pocket money to send a sixpenny postal order to 10 Downing Street as a birthday present.

• Italian vermouth maker Cinzano was the first firm to produce promotional postal orders in the 1980s, when customers could exchange them for bottle caps.

• In 1881, ten post office HQs were issued with books of orders starting with number 000001. Only half have been unearthed.